Hand Movements May Give Clues to ADHD Severity – Drugs.com MedNews

Drugs.com recently posted an article about ADHD that – wait – you don’t get news from drugs.com? How else are you going to find out about new drug approvals by the FDA, breaking information about recalls & lots of other useful stuff? Where else are you going to get articles like the one about which I’m commenting?

OK. So they posted this article about studies involving hand movements and ADHD which had some interesting points. One study found that children with ADHD weren’t able to perform the finger-tapping exercise without extraneous movements that weren’t as apparent in “typical children.” Another demonstrated that magnetic pulses caused movements in ADHD children to a greater degree than “typical children.” They said something about myelination of the left/right brain connective nerve tissue, the brain’s “braking mechanism” on movements, and a demonstration of why ADDers have a problem with keyboards and fine hand movement tasks. The article also said that there wasn’t a clear “clinical” application for the outcomes of this study or these tests.

Whoa! That’s a lot of stuff there, compadre! First of all, does anyone other than me have a problem with comparing ADDers to “typical” children? Typical? What are they saying? Who are they stigmatizing? How about calling those “typical children” as having “Attention Surplus Disorder” (thank you Thom Hartman.) Typical indeed. Read Harte’s anthropological & historical view of ADD in “Think Fast: The ADD Experience,” T. Hartman & J. Bowman, 1996, Underwood Books,(link to Amazon page for the book,) a book of excerpts from the Compuserve (remember that) ADD forums. Typical! Poppycock!

Next: What do you think of a parent that allows his/her child to be subjected to “magnetic pulses” as a form of testing without knowing the outcome? Even with knowing the short-term outcome. I realize that it’s hard to test pediatric effects and dosages but, really…. “God said, ‘Abraham, kill me a son.'” (“Highway 61,” B. Dylan, as if you didn’t know) but Abraham was spared from having to do that by the substitution of a ram at the last minute (insert computer and RAM joke here.) How do you feel about parents submitting children to experiments in the name of science? Me, I believe in things between consenting adults being permissible (within limits) but how does a parent consent for his/her child to be subjected to “trans-cranial magnetic pulses” – zapping the kids brain with magnetic charges – to observe if his/her arm jerks in response.

Finally, and this is the big one for me, and the whole point of this post: No clinical application? Are you ferreal? How about the simple “clinical” value of a piece of psychoeducation? Being able to tell a frustrated parent that the fidgeting child doesn’t have anything wrong with him, that it’s just the way his brain works and let’s find things that will help him learn instead of beating him down for not being able to sit still. How about being able to tell the child who doesn’t have the same fine motor skill as some of his buddies that, believe it or not, that will develop with time but, in the mean while, what can you do that they can’t because that’s what makes you special. How about using the information to educate teachers so they can learn that the kid who gets up from his seat to watch the squirrels running in the ivy on the side of the school building is also learning something, probably already finished the assignment, and is preventing himself from being bored (and getting in trouble for fidgeting.)

How about forgetting this ADHD vs “Typical.” Treat a child like he’s defective and you get a problem child. Treat a child like he’s a member of the family and you get a member of the family who can use his gifts. ADDers aren’t defective. Just different. If you think they frustrate you, you have no idea how frustrated the ADDer is – but that’s for another post.

This is your best blog ever, Jay! I love your aggressive paradigm tweak — what the hell is “typical?” As someone who has worked with ADHD children and visited a school where they were made to stand in straight lines in the playground, and called “bad” for being energetic, I’m appalled at the presumptive, speculative, and weird value-laden language in this report. None of it even sounds scientific! You’re right — children can’t say “no,” and so wild experimentation at the behest of frightened and bewildered parents is put into play.

I don’t want to exaggerate too terribly, but haven’t we been down this route before? There was a time when gay adolescents were subjected to “reparative therapies” involving electric shocks (not treatment — shocks!). Oh, come to think of it, in some places they still are!
I say free the fast-talking, hand moving, leg-tapping, smart-alecky children!!